That's Holland for you! I think about 1/3 of Dutch women give birth at home with a midwife? So the health care system and the pain relief methods are planned around that. Wally has 2 cousins who gave birth recently, they both labored at home with one of them being transferred eventually for a C-section - and they are not particularly crunchy or alternative people at all. And yeah, when we visited the newborns we got special birth hagelslag on toast (pink for girls, blue for boys).

In France, giving birth without an epidural is practically unheard of. My father did get to smoke and drink coffee with the midwives (in the hospital) while my mother was laboring...

That was kind of amazing! Of course, some of us had to go a lot longer than 2 hours (like try 23), and then comes the part of pushing a very large baby out of a small place... but I'm impressed that they even tried, and one of them made it the whole 2 hours! I admit I laughed too.

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 6025Location: United States of New England

Tofulish wrote:

My friend who birthed in England said she got a cup of tea and some biscuits at their birthing center which sounds so nice.

If I ever have another birth, I want cookies after.

i saw one of my friends from college yesterday and she was saying how after both her kids were born all she wanted was a sandwich. her husband was crying and all emotional and she was like "just get me a sandwich, like NOW"

So many people have told me that their big postpartum meal was the best thing they've ever tasted, so I was all excited for that, and then I was totally not hungry! It was the middle of the night and I was just excited and not in the mood for food, so I just had a banana. But then the next morning I had chocolate peanut butter pie for breakfast and that was pretty awesome.

Oh man, I would have killed for ANY food after giving birth! Typical of hospitals in this area, they didn't let me eat before or during labor, so when I gave birth it had been 28 hours since I'd eaten. By the time they did all the post-birth stuff and moved me to a recovery room, the kitchen was closed and didn't open again until 14 hours after I gave birth. That pathetic peanut butter and jelly sandwich was 42 hours in the making.

_________________Yay, and verily he said unto them, "Eat this nooch for it tastes kind of like cheese, and drink this kombucha for it is awesome. And don't be a vegan hating douche because no one likes an asshat." - DancesWithTofu

My friend who birthed in England said she got a cup of tea and some biscuits at their birthing center which sounds so nice.

The place where I had E&M had a room full of everything non-alcoholic a person might possibly like to drink. Endless juice of all varieties, soda (not sure what beyond diet gingerale, which I did drink a few of), water, coffee, tea, and on and on. To this day, I can't drink grape juice without thinking about having just popped out a baby, because I seriously probably drank two dozen tiny cans of grape juice while there each time.

They also made me a vegan smoothie after M was born because all food was repulsive to me but the nurses were really concerned about me needing to eat something other than grape juice. That smoothie was so good.

I still can't believe you guys don't have the gas in America, why is that?

After our baby was born, while she was being weighed and such I just wanted to go and have a shower so I could put some clothes on, but my midwife wouldn't let me get up because she was scared I would fall down [47 hour labour and a fair bit of blood loss] so she made me a big pile of peanut butter toast. Conveniently my husband ate most of it while she was busy with the baby so I could finally get up and get clean!

Also this video is awesome. And pshaww, two hours? What kind of awesome labour would that be?!

Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 11:51 amPosts: 6025Location: United States of New England

the hospital where im giving birth is right up the street from my most favoritest restaurant ever. it's a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant and i already have informed him he will be my burrito delivery boy when im in the hospital. they're also open til like 2 am i think.

We used to live in Worcester, but the only Mexican I ever went to there was Tortilla Sam's. Sometimes I still think about their buffalo tofu. Mmm. Buffalo tofu. I know everyone thinks Worcester is a pit but there was so much food I loved there.

(I would have to ask him to be sure, but I think the Marlborough one was Mi Ranchito!)

Wow, that was pretty funny. I wonder if it was realistic though, I mean was it supposed to simulate pushing? Maybe I was just lucky but my contractions didn't seem that bad. I just breathed, bounced on my ball and sprayed hot water on my belly in the shower and that pretty much did the trick. The 3 hours of pushing however, was totally evil.

I don't recall being particularly hungry afterwards either, but maybe that's because my hospital & doctor let me eat dinner when I was in early labor, so it really was just overnight that I didn't eat.

_________________I'm not asking for utopian dreams...just a little peace in this world. That's a logical thing. - Deee-Lite

Oh, man. Inez was (finally!) born at like 1:30 in the morning and the nurses were like "you're veg-what now?" and eventually brought me sad dry toast. They were sweet to try and I was a so tired I really didn't care.

Tangent to a tangent: the day we came home from the hospital my mom brought over some blended sweet potato soup she'd made that she decided on a whim to add a beet to. It was the color of lochia and I want to vom to this day when I think about it, even though it was delicious.